lifeasmission
exploring the mystery of life and mission as one and the same
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Archive of "culture" Category
The Role of the Bible in Society
As Christendom continues to unravel and the Church loses its privileged role within culture at large, we live in an increasingly biblical illiterate society.
– Quoting Scripture will mean less and less.
– Bible stories will be increasingly misunderstood or forgotten altogehter
– And the battles that Christians wage with one another over the objective nature of Scripture will continue to damage our reputation in a broken world.
For these reasons and more, there is an incredibly important conversation to be had regarding the role of the Bible in society.
In contributing to that conversation, here’s a 40 minute panel discussion from the recent Q conference here in Chicago between Tim Keller, Alastain McGrath, Dempsey Rosales-Acosta, and Brian McLaren (you can find brief bios on all these panelists here) on that topic. I’m anxious to see what kinds of responses others might have to the questions and discussion here.
(For those reading in a feed reader, the video is flash and may not come through, so you might want to click through to the actual post to view or download.)
Where Do You Live?
Just caught this short video from a favorite author of mine, Andy Couch. A while back I took the time to review his latest book, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. See what he has to say about the link between idolatry and the questions which define us.
Reviewing Deep Church by Jim Belcher
Jim Belcher, the author of Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional, and I have much in common.
We both did masters degrees at Fuller Theological Seminary.
We both have a heart for church planting.
I teach a class on the Emerging Church based on the intensive that he references in his book. (35)
We get frustrated when people talk past one another, defaulting to caricatured stereotypes rather than embracing a posture of openness.
And we both value looking for a “third way” to approach dichotomistic thinking.
He is right when he says,
It seems that every time someone criticizes the emerging church, they pick the worst-case scenario or the most extreme statements. (49)
He is also correct in noting,
It seems the emerging church, for rhetorical purposes, uses sweeping generalizations about the traditional church that are unfair. (76)
The larger Body of Christ would indeed be served well by discourse that is deeper, more specific, and marked by a sense of humble openness. Belcher’s chapters on Deep: Truth, Evangelism, Gospel, Worship, Preaching, Ecclesiology, and Culture, are essentially his attempts to facilitate just that – a worthwhile enterprise in my opinion.
While Belcher’s book is truly helpful in this regard, I’m not sure he really hits the mark in terms of articulating a true “third way” as a means of engaging these topics. Very often, his conclusions in these chapters are a combination of a chastened version of the EC position he articulates and an expanded version of the traditional position he articulates (usually w/ reference to Tim Keller and his church!). I suppose this is a kind of “third way,” maybe even precisely the one Belcher desires, but I’m not certain it’s the most helpful kind of third way for the Church to pursue.
The mistake, I believe, comes in the assumption that one can simply pit the positions of the EC against the positions of the traditional church. The main problem here is that many in the EC camp are themselves trying to articulate and maneuver a “third way” between the modern categories of conservatism and liberalism, a feature that Belcher seems to either overlook or discount w/o comment. An indication of this is his quick dismissal of the Anabaptist tradition from which many in the EC draw as one which is able to circumvent many of the dichotomies addressed in this book on account of its fundamentally, Christendom-rejecting, stance. Belcher never seems to ask, “How might people in the EC camp already be searching for a third way in response to classic approaches to these issues?,” but assumes that their positions are simply reactions against the positions of traditional churches.
Belcher sets himself on this course in stating,
We need to define it [the emerging church] as a movement, particularly its theology. The best way to do this is to look at what the emerging church movement is against – the things they are protesting and the rasons why they are calling for change. (38)
For the life of me, I can’t grasp why someone would want to define a movement by what they are against (even it it is a protest movement) rather than what they are for. We certainly regard what the classic reformers were for as far more more important than what they were against! But more than this, Belcher fails to identify missiology as a core motif for the EC. For many, if not most, in the global EC movement, it is an attempt to participate with God and God’s mission in the world that is reshaping how they understand the sorts of topics that Belcher raises in his book, not vice versa.
These criticisms notwithstanding, I am glad that Jim wrote this book and don’t doubt for a second that it has an will continue to help many.
**Jim has recently decided to resign from his position as lead pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, CA. You can read a letter he wrote to the congregation regarding this transition here and some additional discussion about this sort of trend here.
Our Need for an Education Revolution
Caught this video (via next wave e-zine) today and it struck a cord.
As our world continues to change and shift faster and faster, many, if not most or all, of the systems and structures we have put in place to shape our culture will need to not just improve, but transform altogether.
As someone who is passionate about teaching and education in general, this video has me thinking about implications for the Body of Christ. Perhaps there is something to be learned here in terms of the perspective on formation that the Body of Christ ought to be able to attest to.
Alan Hirsch – Making Missional Marketable
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Alan Hirsch. The book he co-authored with Mike Frost, The Shaping of Things to Come, was the first I read that began to help me understand the angst I felt with the attractional model of church so prevalent in the US.This is why I was so thrown a few days ago when I read that Alan Hirsch had asserted that American Christianity is the great hope for the Church in the West. He made comments to this point in the opening remarks of his talk at a conference called “Verge” in Texas. You can view the video (Session 2) here. At one point he said,
If we don’t win the battle of the decline of the church here in the states, then it’s not going to come from anywhere else. We will win or lose the battle over here in the states.
His rationale seemed to be that 1) the Church is the rest of the West is all but dead and 2) that Americans have a built-in entrepenurial (apostolic) sort of spirit.
On this count, I was surprised and disappointed on 2 levels.
First, he seemed to communicate a latent assumption that “the West” maintains a position of superiority in terms of global Christianity. He admitted that Christianity is growing in non-Western parts of the world, but never suggested that our hope might lie in learning from what God is going there.
Secondly, he referenced the American entrepreneurial spirit as the key factor in our ability to “win the battle of the decline of the church.” I was blown away! I was immediately reminded of a quote by Einstein, which, even more surprisingly, he referenced later, but totally misused,
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
It is American entrepreneurialism that got us into the mess of creating a church system predicated on the cultural values of individualism and consumerism. Relying on the same characteristic is hardly a promising solution.
Over and above all these disappointments comes a more biblical/theological one, namely, that putting our hope in anything except for a willingness to sacrifice what is most dear to us, to listen to the voices of those on the margins, and to trust God with our future (which may very well mean the increasing marginalization of the church), is, in any sense, in keeping with God’s desire for the Body of Christ.
There was a 2nd major part to Hirsch’s presentation that really made me nervous.
He made the claim that the dominant expression of church in America, that of the seeker-sensitive/attractional model, has a market appeal to about 40% of the American population. This yields what Hirsch called a “strategic problem” and a “missionary problem.”
The “strategic problem” is that 95% of the churches in the US are seeking to become the kind of church that appeals to this same 40% of the population.
The “missionary problem” is that 60% (and growing) of our population is being virtually ignored.
So far so good, but at one point Alan was commenting on attractional types of churches that are “reaching” the 40% of the American population and said, “Those who do this well should strive to do it better.” Not change what they are doing, just do more of the same, better.
In affirming an attractional (or what he is now calling ex-tractional) model of church simply because it succeeds in drawing a crowd, he fails to critique the most devastating reality, namely, that these churches, on the whole, don’t make disciples. By and large, they facilitate the already pervasive nominal christianity that pervades at least 40% of the American population.
Let me try to summarize my push back on what I am hearing and seeing from Alan Hirsch as of late.
1) Putting our eggs in the basket (Easter week!) of the American church is futile, if not sinful. This is exactly how we got where we are and trying harder ain’t gonna cut it. It may very well be that God is at work killing off a defunct ecclesial trajectory and we would do better to repent and ask for mercy than to rely on any ability we think we possess to save the day.
2) Alan is right, there is a descent portion of the American population that has some natural affinity with the sort of church which thrives in Christendom. But, merely because people will respond to an attractional model of church does not make it ok. A pragmatic victory is almost never a biblical one. Attractional models of church are built on the cultural values of individualism and consumerism and, save for the grace of God, are incapable of yielding the sort of disciples the world desperately needs.
I have a serious and growing concern regarding the temptation to make missional marketable. The temptation is especially seductive to those who, like Alan, have a deep love for the church as the Body of Christ and want to see it thrive. But, if God means for missional theology/ecclesiology to benefit the church, it will remain an invitation to repentance, sacrifice, and death. This sort of invitation has never had much market appeal, especially in the US.
Toward A Missional Vision of Theological Education: Cultural Pioneering
Previous posts in this Series:
Preliminary Thoughts | The Root of the Problem | The Fruit of the Problem | New Soil | Community Rootedness | Character Formation | Conviction Shaping | Contextual Training
Christendom bore no real need for leaders who were cultural pioneers. After all, if the culture is already Christian, what do we have to pioneer? It would be logical to conclude then, that as Christendom crumbles, the need for leaders with the skills for cultural pioneering would increase. This would be true and mistaken at the same time. It’s true that we have a greater and greater need for cultural pioneers, but the crumbling of Christendom isn’t the reason. Rather, a missional vision of the church carries with it an inherent need for leaders who serve as cultural pioneers which means we need a vision of theological education capable of equipping men and women for this task.
Allow me to offer just 2 basic points to support my argument for this need.
First, missional churches operate out of the assumption that mission is part of God’s very character and nature. God sends the son, the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, the Trinity sends the Church as the Body of Christ. Little wonder then that missional church leaders lament the modern phenomenon of churches playing the role of vendors of religious goods and services that spend the bulk of their time, energy, and money trying to get people to come. Missional churches are not those who focus on offering the best “Christian” stuff (teaching, programs, groups, etc.), but those who focus on engaging with world’s darkest and toughest needs.
Second, missional churches tend to be marked by their attention to Jesus’ announcement of the good news of God’s Kingdom, the new reality inaugurated in Jesus. Just as Jesus stood at odds with the culture of his day on account of his allegiance to God’s Kingdom, so too the missional church of today will find itself at odds with the culture of our day as we seek to embody God’s Kingdom through faith in Jesus. To understand the local church as an expression of a new reality, however, means that we recognize the need for leaders capable of cultural pioneering.
Current models of theological education seem to come up short in terms of their fit to equip male and female leaders on both these counts. How then are we to go about doing so? I offer three ideas for the training of cultural pioneers.
1) Deep involvement in a missional community
There is no better way to learn how to be a cultural pioneer that to participate in a community that is seeking to do this very thing. My hope and expectation would be that to a great degree, the various aspects of this missional vision of theological education that I have been describing would all serve to produce leaders who think and act in terms of cultural pioneering. I have a hard time imagining that someone could give themselves to a process of formation that is rooted in community and centered around character formation through the shaping of Kingdom convictions and contextual training and emerge as someone who would rather manage a program driven group of individuals than lead a community into the world as an expression of God’s alternative reality.
2) Encourage Cultural Creation & Cultivation
I am indebted to Andy Crouch and his book, Culture Making, for my thinking (and language) on this. The power and trajectory of Christendom resulted in a church that, at various times, thought of “culture” as some monolithic thing that it could condemn, critique, copy, or consume. Only now, as we increasingly find ourselves on the margins of society, are we rediscovering the postures of creating and cultivating culture. We create culture through values, practices, and imagination. However, as Crouch says,
We cannot make culture without culture. And this means that creation begins with cultivation – taking care of the good things culture has already handed on to us. The first responsibility of culture makers is not to make something new but to become fluent in the cultural tradition to which we are responsible. Before we can be culture makers, we must be culture keepers.
This leads us directly to the third ingredient in forming cultural pioneers.
3) Practicing Discernment
The need for skilled discernment is going nowhere but up! Never before in human history has so much information and so many opinions been so easily accessible. Add to this the pervasive individualism and relativism of Western culture and you are left with a cultural nightmare for those who believe in such a thing as contextual faithfulness to biblical truth. As Jesus’ disciples were, we must be taught to see, hear, and feel with eyes, ears, and hearts attuned to the reality of the Kingdom of God in our midst. How are we ever to create culture unless we can discern our way through it as followers of Jesus? This takes years of practice within community and remains a lifelong discipline.
Are there other aspects of cultural pioneering that you think I’m missing? How else might we equip others to this end? Anxious for your (end of the year and end of the series!) thoughts.
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